Scores of friends and admirers flocked to this tiny desert town today to pay tribute to David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, who celebrated his 82nd birthday by lecturing on Biblical subjects at the Sde Boker school.

Mr. Ben-Gurion, a widower now and at least officially out of politics, spent the day among close friends of the Bible Circle which used to meet in the Ben Gurions’ Tel Aviv home or in the Jerusalem home of the late Itzhak Ben Zvi when the latter was Israel’s President. Later, speaking in the school which overlooks the grave of his wife, Paula, Mr. Ben-Gurion discoursed on Moses. David and Elijah. Moses was right, he declared, when he said that the Jews are a genuine and unique nation. Then, applying the Biblical lesson in an oblique criticism of the Government of his political foe, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, Mr. Ben-Gurion said: “Israel has all the characteristics of a unique nation. We have a unique army. What we need is a special and extraordinary Government. Without such a Government we shall not survive.”